By Priti Naik
Boosting investment from industry in development of additional terminals for handling rail cargos, the government has launched a new ‘Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ policy. The policy is targeted to set up 100 GCTs in the next financial year i.e., financial year 2023, 2024 and 2025.
The railway minister Ashwini Vaishnav, in a reply to the question in Lok Sabha, informed that the policy and the locations for GCTs that are being identified/finalized on the basis of demand from industry and potential cargo traffic.
The GCTs will simplify the application and approval process and no departmental charges will be levied on the applicant. No land license fee will be charged for the Railway land used for connectivity and no cost for commercial staff will be charged, read the statement.
Other features of GCTs include all common-user traffic facilities at the serving station to be constructed and maintained by Railway; for Terminals giving 1 MT or more outward traffic; cost of mid-section block hut/ block station to be reimbursed as 10% freight rebate; maintenance of all assets (track, signaling, OHE) by Railway at its own cost, excluding the yard and loading/unloading lines and for the railway to reserve the right to grant connectivity to another terminal(s) from such portions of track being maintained by Railway.
